Children’s Drawings Seized as “Gay Propaganda” in Russia

Russian police have seized drawings from a school art exhibition celebrating the UN’s International Day for Tolerance and are investigating them as possible violations of the country’s anti-gay propaganda law.

The law, passed in 2013, prohibits educating minors about homosexuality, and has been used to crackdown on Pride marches, which was recently ruled a violation of human rights by the European Court of Human Rights.

According to the Yekaterinburg Department of Education, the art competition was held at the school from November 12 to 17, with a total of 17 works presented, Interfax reports.

Students who created the art ranged from the 5th to 11th grades, according to local Russian media outlet Ura.ru.

It reports one of the ninth grade students creating a work including the words, “We are not given to choose appearance, orientation, or race. We are all unique in our own way,” and depicted the silhouettes of an opposite-gendered couple, as well as two same-sex couples, one male-male and one female-female.

“In the photo next to this picture there are about ten more posters with images of a rainbow (a symbol of the movement of sexual minorities), a planet, people of different nationalities,” the report continues.

Valery Gorelykh, head of the public relations department at the State Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk region, told Russian media outlet RBC the audit was carried out after negative feedback from parents.

“Employees of the Police Department No. 15 of the Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Yekaterinburg went to school to conduct an inspection. It turns out whether this event was really dedicated to the Day of Tolerance. Seventeen works of students were confiscated, at the moment they are sent for examination,” Gorelykh said.

Earlier this year, the first minor, Maxim Neverov, 16, was arrested under the country’s anti-gay propaganda law, but was found not guilty when a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence against him.